Curses, Cups and Courage
by TwilightChild999
Summary: Season One AU. All FairyTale Land. The Evil Queen decides that she wants Rumplestiltskin under her control, and takes a more direct approach. Will Belle get a chance to do the brave thing and save her true love?
1. Chapter 1

Author's note: I posted this once before, but it needed some work. It still does. Desperately. If anyone would be willing to help me out by offering some beta reading services, I would greatly appreciate it.

I do not own the characters of OUAT or the show itself. I make no money by writing fanfiction.

…

**Curses, Cups, and Courage**

He had desperately wanted the Queen to be lying.

He had listened as much as he could. He had tried to filter through the cries for help, the anguish and the fear that would summon him. He pushed through and around every voice, trying to find Belle's, trying to determine what it would sound like if she screamed. He tried to track her flickering glow in all the world of gusting shadows, but he couldn't do it, and the shadows came back to swallow his heart again.

Rumplestilstkin was good at torturing himself. He often wondered if, on those days right after throwing her out, when he had shut himself away, refused to hear the voices, refused to deal, refused to speak or step out of his private world with just his spinning wheel, if she had called out to him in agony, begged for him to help her, or perhaps just whispered his name in a soft goodbye that he would always imagine but never hear.

He imagined having left his mind open just enough to have heard her in the usual cacophony. He imagined her pulling free of one of her captors or of her binds, stumbling to the edge of the window and whispering his name with what energy she had left before falling. He imagined catching her like he had when she fell from his window, cradling her to him and whisking her away, back…

'She needs…a home..?'

But he wasn't the hero. He was the beast who took the maiden, and then left her to die.

He had searched.

He had flickered in and out of random locations around her father's kingdom. He dared not go into the castle or he would likely have gutted each member of the court, saving Maurice's death for last so that if he was forced to imagine Belle's screams his entire life, he would at least have her father's screams to keep him company, too.

From one rooftop he had noticed a tower. The windows were boarded.

He had flitted invisibly and in disguise among the townspeople to try and find information, but each time the Princess came up in discussion, every person fell into a somber silence, some removing their hats and others offering a tentative smile and a change of subject.

His heart sank, but still he had searched.

He scoured the cemetery belonging to the royal family. He paced in front of each row of tombstones, reading even long obscured inscriptions and searching the same ones again and again for a sign of her name or her recent death, finally kicking over the stone of a Queen Deirdra with an enraged howl.

He had sat with a cloak covering him in a shabby little lean-to pub. He ordered their most poisonous rot-gut. With claws digging slowly through the rotting wood of his small table, he imagined storming the castle, rattling it with all his powers and demanding answers, demanding every gruesome detail and then…

Just as the sun was setting, a barmaid left for the day, calling back to the owner of the pub that she would be visiting the Princess's Stone.

He was gone as if he had never disturbed the place at all, two gold pieces left on the table.

The imp had followed the barmaid away from the village and through the woods by leaping silently from branch to branch. She led him to a clearing hidden by willows. He waited, crouched in the shadows above with heart hammering in his ears as she took some moments, assumedly paying her respects, before departing back towards the village.

Rumplestiltskin, ever the coward, kept to the cover of the leaves until he could no longer hear the woman's footsteps. He leapt down from the trees, stumbled, and then very slowly sank to his knees.

At the center of the clearing there was a gravestone made of solid marble, with roses carved onto either side of the engraved words.

Trembling, the dark one had crawled closer, then reached out to trace his clawed fingertips over the engraved 'Belle.'

He couldn't control his expression, his breathing. He sat closer, his hand moving over the stone as if by its own initiative.

'Beloved Daughter. Kind Princess. Savior of the Kingdom. Stolen by a beast.'

His hand clenched into a fist at the last word, but all his rage melted away, leaving him shaking.

'Now you've made your choice. And you're going to regret it, forever.'

His expression crumbled in agony, and he clenched his fingers in the freshly disturbed dirt. He held it tightly in his hands, as if it could substitute as some part of her to hold on to.

He sucked in air like a dying man and looked at the stone again, tracing her engraved name with his mind's eye before swallowing to try and bring moisture back to his throat and finally croaking her name "Belle…" His throat closed around the reverent whisper and he rocked himself forward until his forehead touched the earth at the base of her marker.

He let the rest of his body sink down onto the dirt, his knees unable to hold him as he crumpled numbly onto the ground. The Dark One listened, and he listened, but as usual, the dead didn't speak to him. He swallowed, tried to ignore the sand paper feeling of his throat, then tried to fill the silence.

"H-here you are…I…s-searched…but…"

Rumplestiltskin closed his eyes and hot tears slid down his face and into the dirt beneath his cheek. He breathed raggedly, sharp gasps and quivering breaths. He imagined how he must look, the most powerful Sorcerer in the world, the Dark One who had heard many a plea from many a desperate soul, who never imagined that he would ever again be crumpled in a pile of despair without any sense of pride.

He gasped in a breath and pushed himself up until his face at least wasn't in the dirt. He rested his forehead on the ice cool marble, closed his eyes, but pulled away when he realized that the touch of the cold stone would never sooth him when all he wanted was her warmth.

He had looked down at the base of the gravestone, then around him, and saw remnants of dried flowers. He realized with shame that he had nothing to bring the beautiful princess whose grave he had gone crawling to. He had brought nothing to honor her or her memory, just his empty heart.

The shame burned in him.

He could summon any flower in the kingdom, make vines of any bloom grow around the stone, but it seemed like a hollow gesture when he thought back on the one rose he had given her and his treatment of her afterwards. Without conscious thought, or perhaps without any thought at all, he held out his hand before him and summoned his dagger.

With a sweeping gesture of his hand, he removed four feet of dirt from the grave, and was then frozen in indecision by the idea that perhaps he should uncover her casket…look inside, and see if she was actually there…but the word "beast" on her tombstone stopped him, filling him with burning shame once again and a sickening dread at the idea of seeing a mangled corpse in his mind every time he thought of his beautiful Belle.

He couldn't justify leaving the dagger there, placing it reverently in the dirt over where her heart would be, then packing the soil over it with his hands instead of using his magic again. He knew with everything that was coherent inside that he could be making a mistake.

But as he sat in front of the stone with her name engraved in it, the last sign of her he had in the world other than the chipped cup and his heart torn ragged, Rumplestiltskin began to talk to someone who would never hear him about a story that he had promised her.

He wanted to tell her. He wanted to tell someone about Bea. All the loneliness that he had ignored before taking her crushed down on him, and instead of telling the cold stone in front of him about the long story of his son and becoming the Dark One, he instead said that when he found his son, Bea…a brave boy that Belle would have admired much more than the coward kneeling and whispering brokenly at her grave…someday, somehow, he would bring his boy to that spot. He would visit her, and he would tell his son a story about the one person in the world who could teach him about love again, and about courage. When that day came, Rumpelstiltskin would take the dagger back, he would hand it to his boy, and he would give up his power.

Or so he promised a stone in soft whispers before it became too dark to see the engraving of her name.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's note: Thanks everyone for the support. I appreciate the encouraging reviews, although I would like to say that I don't mind constructive criticism, either. And if any beta readers could help me out with this project and with future projects, I would appreciate it.

I don't own the show or the characters. I just occasionally dance with them in my head.

Yes, I'm crazy.

…..

**Chapter 2**

The wheel couldn't help him.

Nothing could help him forget when his shoulders still burned where she had touched him, the first human contact he had had without violence in decades. He couldn't think of much else when he closed his eyes and could still feel the ground shift beneath his feet when she had kissed him. And each time he opened his eyes again, her chipped cup was waiting on the pedestal across the room from his spinning wheel.

She had sat with him at the wheel. It was there that everything had almost changed.

Except, he was still a monster. He was still the ultimate power in the land. He was still on his quest.

He was still alone.

What he didn't expect out of being alone was the aching void that the owner of the chipped cup had left in him, a great gaping, singed space in him to rival the absence of his son.

He didn't expect her to be gone forever.

'He was cruel to her.'

Rumplestiltskin shut his eyes, but knew the cup would be waiting for him. He knew that he deserved the punishment of seeing it every day.

'He sent in clerics to cleanse her soul with scourges and flaying…'

Her blue eyes had shimmered like oceans at him as he had sent her away, his hand held up resolutely, a finger pointed to the door.

'My power means more to me-'

"NO!"

He shouted to the dark.

It was always dark.

He wouldn't crack open the curtains to allow a pale comparison of the light that she had cast with her presence. He wanted no false hope to tell him that she was in the castle somewhere, perhaps making a mess in the kitchen, sneaking into the library or dusting down some corridor she aught not to be in.

She was dead.

Dead.

The word cracked through his mind like an explosion. And when it faded, it left nothing but a hollow ache.

"She's…dead." He said it, a whisper, trying to align the fact to his reality.

He stayed at his spinning wheel, huddled among the shadows with his hands hung over his knees. He looked down at them, curling the fingers to hide the thick black claws from his view.

…

'Do the brave thing, and bravery will follow.'

Belle sighed as she examined both directions of the road outside the tavern and inn she had spent two weeks in, earning a small room and meals by cleaning. The night before she had met another soul longing as desperately as she was, and for the same reason. He was called Dreamy, and he was in love when he shouldn't be, and just as hopelessly blind about it as anyone else.

She had given Dreamy advice to seek out his love and take a chance that it might work, that it might be all the wonderful things Belle herself had briefly dreamt it could be when she was confident she could break an ancient curse and find the heart of a man who had tried so hard to lose himself to evil.

Belle peered south down the road, the direction that could eventually lead her back to her father's kingdom, somewhere she knew she would always be welcome. The road was smooth and worn enough to see. She turned the other way to look north, and eyed a road mostly overgrown and that sloped up rocky ridges with sparse trees. The way she had come from weeks ago. The way back to the Dark Castle.

'Do the brave thing, and bravery will follow.'

Why did she want to go back? What could she possibly have to say to the man who believed himself a monster and did everything he could to prove it to her?

'Love is layered. Love is a mystery to be uncovered.'

But was the mystery worth risking herself?

She grimaced, took a step towards the south, but stopped. She bit her lip, chewed at it. The sunlight streaming through the trees onto the grass made her think of shimmering skin and fathomless eyes.

She turned back, took a step towards the North, towards the rocky ground and the impending deep shadows waiting in the distance, and her heart clenched. She thought of Dreamy and the wonder on his face, the lost expression, half way between despair and elation, and she thought, yet again, of him. The way he peered at her through the spokes of his wheel and the string as if he had been holding it taught the entire time she'd been away. The tentative joy restrained in a neutral expression with a grin threatening the corners of his lips and eyes.

'I'm not unhappy…'

She thought of the cautious wonder on his face when she took the string from his hand and sat beside him.

Belle sighed, shook her shoulders, then straightened them. Her gaze became steely, a challenge to the shadows in her path as she trudged resolutely towards the north. "This is stupid. I know it must be. But the worst he'll probably do is just throw me out again."

The huntsman watched the girl stumble up the harsher path from the woods. He was undetected by his prey.

He felt a searing heat in his pocket, and with jaw clenched he pulled a small, square, plain glass mirror from the pocket and looked down at the perfectly polished appearance of the fair but evil Queen.

"She's heading back to Rumplestiltskin's lair. Do you want me to take her?"

The Queen grinned back at him from the small dingy mirror. "Heading back, you say? Well, that's interesting…no, let the little trollop crawl back to her master if she so chooses. My magic should keep her presence hidden until she arrives at his castle. I have a bigger task for you. It seems that dear Rumple has been careless about where he's last hidden something very, very precious. I want you to find it and retrieve it."

"An object?"

"Yes…" Her smile widened, all white teeth and bold red lipstick. "A dagger."


	3. Chapter 3

I appreciate the reviews and support very very much. It's my fuel. The more reviews I get, the more I write. ;-)

Yes, this is another short chapter, but the next one will be much, much longer.

I have someone who has volunteered to be a beta reader for me. I appreciate that, and I'm very excited. However, I haven't worked with my beta on this chapter because I was too impatient to get it out. My next chapter will be edited.

Hope you enjoy.

Again, Once Upon a Time and all characters belonging to the show are not mine.

….

**Courses, Cups and Courage**

**Chapter 3**

On his journey the Huntsman "lost" the small mirror the Queen used to keep track of him. It wasn't the first piece of glass to be displaced under a rock, and it likely wouldn't be the last, but to protect himself from the wrath of the woman who could still look out of the shattered pieces, the scruffed man trudged a few miles onward before whistling sharply.

A white and gray blur emerged from the darkness. The wolf that had been the Huntsman's companion since he was a small boy nudged his hip with his snout before trotting ahead, scouting the area with his nose just as thoroughly as the man did with his eyes.

The Huntsman smiled, thinking that he would never find better companionship, even if he couldn't feel the familiar warmth in his absent heart.

His smile wilted.

"What do you think is more bearable?" he asked his companion. "To be cursed and caged, or cursed and free?"

The wolf stopped on a hill ahead of the man, his head cocked.

"The Queen has sent us to a village where she suspects the Dark One has hidden a dagger." When he passed the wolf it began to walk at his side, his strides matching the man's pace. "I'm no fool, and I've heard the legends. This could very well be the source of the Dark One's power."

The wolf huffed and sped up to match the quickening pace of the Huntsman.

"If I have that dagger in my grasp just long enough to use it, we could very well be free of Her Majesty."

He took off at a run, his lifelong companion at his side, ducking under branches and leaping over roots and fallen trees without changing pace.

….

His actions had been careless.

That was why, while he sat at his untouched spinning wheel in his elaborate but empty Dark Castle, watching flecks of dust gather on different surfaces, Rumplestiltskin wasn't surprised to feel the hot prickling at his skin that told him that someone was too close to the source of his magic. Warning bells went off in his mind, but he still sat there and he clenched his hands until his claws dug into his palms instead of magically transporting to the source of the eminent danger.

_Rumplestiltskin… _a call from far away, but it wasn't far enough for him to be immune. It would never be far enough. The imp shivered before the feeling like an ice cold grip wrapped around the base of his spine. He jerked rigidly up from his slouched position, and took what he dreaded was one last look at the cup across the room from him. _I summon thee!_

Rumplestiltskin was magically torn away, leaving only dust to occupy the castle.

The Dark One stood in a familiar clearing. The sun was setting, but it wasn't dark enough for him to miss the engravings on the tombstone. It wasn't dark enough for him to miss the sight of the mounds of disturbed dirt in front of the tombstone, nearly obscuring the second line of writing on it.

Rage boiled inside of him, a rising tide threatening to overwhelm him. He clenched his fists.

He hadn't noticed the figure.

The huntsman stepped from the wall of willows, the dagger held firmly in his hand before him. A wolf followed a few paces behind, snarling a warning at the sorcerer.

Rumplestiltskin narrowed his eyes as he studied the man holding his power. Every time the Huntsman's fingers clamped around the hilt of the blade, it felt as if his fingers were squeezing around his bones, a feeling that made him grit his teeth and suppress a shiver.

He shook off his rage with a shifting of his shoulders and a discreet pop of his neck. He shifted to face the other man, slipping into his flamboyant comedic persona to hide the rage and turmoil boiling within him.

"Well well! What _have_ we here? It's the Queen's dog…" his gaze shifted from the man to the wolf. "And his dog!"

The wolf bared his teeth. The man's face was stoic, his grip on the dagger firm.

Rumplestiltskin lifted one arm in a flourish and gave a mock bow. As he stood he could not hide how his attempt at a smile became a glaring sneer. "Whatever can I do for you?"

The stoic hunter didn't answer. He moved closer by slow, steady steps while the wolf remained silently behind, hackles raised, licking his chops.

Rumplestiltskin's energy was a bundled mass inside of him, unable to escape. The huntsman was getting close to him, close enough for him to have to look up to see the man's hazel eyes, close enough for him to count the hairs on his beard, even if he still couldn't decipher an expression.

The Huntsman studied him; his gold skin and reptilian eyes. Though he didn't show it, the man of the wilderness was surprised to see the sorcerer unkempt – his hair scraggly from lack of care, his dragonhide vest open, and the cream colored silk shirt underneath wrinkled. The sorcerer's hands were dirty with soil like his own.

The Dark One tempered his expression with a cold but mild distaste, even as his desperate foolish heart hammered in his chest. His fingers clenched and rubbed together for want of an end to the stillness he was forced to endure. His eyes darted to the tombstone to take in Belle's name. It might have soothed him if not for the disturbed earth in front of it.

The sorcerer looked back at the Huntsman, searing him with the barely restrained hate in his eyes. "Grave robbing a hobby of yours, dearie?" His voice rose in pitch and his body nearly shook with fury. But despite his desire to be solely focused on his rage, he couldn't help but see himself and Zoso together in a forest in the dark, a smug, knowing grimace of a smile on the former dark one's face and the desperate lunge of his own that took his benefactor's life and power away…

The Huntsman stepped closer still, and the sorcerer wished he could step back away from him. His patience snapped. "What. Do. You. Want?" The last word was a hiss, and his restrained power sparked at his fingertips. He could imagine many outcomes from the encounter, and none of them meant good things for him.

"I want you…" The Huntsman spoke softly, stepped too close for comfort and then shoved Rumplestiltskin hard, using his body weight to slam the slighter framed man into the trunk of a tree, "…to forgive me."

And he did. For a moment, forgiveness washed over the Dark One like a numbing balm until the hunter plunged the dagger into his chest, cutting through flesh, muscle, rib…the Dark One automatically wrapped his hands around the hilt with a tortured gasp.

The hunter had only plunged the knife half way. Rumplestiltskin's heart still hammered even as the tip of the blade threatened to pierce it, and even as his panicked breathing became wet with blood. He looked down at the dagger in his chest. He breathed hard and looked up at the man who would murder him and take his power, but all he could really see was his boy disappearing into a glowing void that he was too cowardly to enter. All his failures compounded into that one crushing moment when he realized that he had chosen his power for nothing. He would never see his son again. All he could hear was a ringing in his ears that sounded like a shrill scream of _you promised! You promised!_

He couldn't understand the Huntsman's hesitance. At first he didn't realize that he was exerting force, that his hands wrapped around the hilt of the blade were holding it in place, just before it could reach his heart. He could exert no force to push the dagger away from him, but while it was in his hands as well, he could almost try to stop it.

But it wouldn't be enough.

The Huntsman noticed the meager struggle that the Dark One seemed able to put up even as the blade being in the Huntsman's hands kept him from truly fighting. So, he leaned his weight harder into it, bore the blade down harder. The imp gasped raggedly when he finally felt it sink deeper to pierce his heart.

"I'm sorry," the hazel eyed man said to him," I wish you had the chance to fight back –"

Rumplestiltskin jerked his head up, glared into his attacker's eyes, leaned his face close and lifted his lip in a sneer. "Wish granted."

He brought his foot up between them, planted it on the Huntsman's sternum and shoved him off with all his tightly coiled might.

The hunter flew across the clearing, slammed into another tree with a thud and crack of his skull, fell down and slumped to the ground, unconscious.

The wolf ran snarling towards Rumplestiltskin. The imp, dagger still lodged in his chest, snapped his fingers and disappeared in a flash of light, just as the wolf leapt at the spot he stood.


	4. Chapter 4

Alright, so I lied about this chapter being longer. I didn't mean to, it just worked out this way.

I very much appreciate the reviews. I love hearing about what people love about the story and even about the parts that could use some improvement. I don't get paid for this, after all…I am quite broke in fact…but I still love to tweak these stories and to get better and better at doing so. I do the tweaking just for myself most of the time, but I especially love to share the tweaking with others.

That sounds wrong, so I'm going to change the subject.

Please keep reviewing, if you all don't mind. The following and the favoriting is all well and good, but the reviews are really what keep my muse going.

Again, the show isn't mine. Some dialogue borrowed from Disney's "Beauty and the Beast," too.

I'm starting to think I should do something with my time that would actually get me paid….but that wouldn't be nearly as fun….

….. ….. …. … ….

**Curses, Cups and Courage**

**Chapter 4**

Everything about the grounds of the Dark Castle was more eerie than Belle remembered. She expected Rumplestiltskin's magic barriers to stop her at the gate, where she assumed she would have to plead with the sorcerer for entry so that she could speak with him.

She expected him to mock her there and refuse to let her in, but the gates opened with a slight push. The frozen grounds were silent, which wasn't unusual, but Belle hadn't felt chilled by the silence the way she did then since she had first arrived. She felt even more confused when she found she could easily push the massive front doors open.

She frowned into the darkness of the castle. There were no candles or torches lit at the immediate entrance.

She gathered her courage with effort, but could only whisper into the dark. "Hello?"

There was no answer except the low howl of the wind around one of the towers. Belle left the doors propped open so that she could navigate by moonlight.

Belle approached the doors to the dining hall and gently nudged them open. The large room was lit very dimly with just a few candles that had almost burned out. She pushed the doors open wider and tried to ignore the way their creaking made her heart beat wildly.

The curtains were back up. The place had layers of dust over everything, which told her that the Dark One at least hadn't found a replacement for her. The table was cluttered with silver and knick-knacks that hadn't been put away.

Why hadn't he come to confront her? He always knew when someone came in or out of the castle. Was he avoiding her, hoping that she would get the point and go away on her own?

Her throat felt dry. She swallowed. "Rumplestiltskin?" She listened, but heard nothing. She sighed, stepped further into the room and spoke louder. "Rumplestiltskin?"

The only answer was silence and the slow shift of dust in the air.

She bowed her head with a soft sigh. She listened a moment longer and wondered if she should go wandering the halls of the place she had begun to think of as her home to try and find him. Perhaps he was up in his apothecary, lost in a spell or a potion that could perform another impossible feat that Belle would never know about unless the sorcerer gave in to her curiosity.

Belle realized with her heart breaking over again that those days were over. He was either there and didn't want to see her or he was away and likely wouldn't want her to make herself at home and find her when he returned. Her courage began to wither.

She turned away from the room with a heavy heart. She wasn't sure how she expected the reunion to go, but she didn't expect to be denied one completely. She gently touched the door, ready to walk out of it.

A crack like a whip split the air. Belle turned and pressed her back against the wall. She searched the room for the source of the noise. She noticed a glow that wasn't there before, looked up and gasped when, high in the air, near the ceiling, she saw a light flicker in and out of life, before the air itself split apart into a flashing purple portal.

A figure fell from the portal and landed on the table with a heavy thud and crash as the knickknacks were broken by the impact or knocked onto the floor.

Belle crouched down for cover. She braced herself against the wall with her hands raised to shield her face and head. She peaked through her fingers and watched the portal blink out of existence with another whip-crack sound and flash of light.

Silence returned to the castle and Belle stumbled back to her feet from her crouched position. She looked up to be sure the portal was gone, then stumbled on numb feet towards the table.

The figure on it wasn't moving. He lay face down on the wood, his body half-curled uncomfortably with one arm curled under his chest.

He wasn't moving.

That confused Belle more than anything, because she could tell by the frame of the man, the height, the knee-high boots and leather clothes…she could tell exactly who it was and he had never fallen in her sight before, much less without getting back up.

She ran the last few steps and nearly fell over the silver pieces on the floor and then the table itself to get to him. She half expected he would turn over and slap her hands away…

She stopped. Her palms hovered unsure over his back. She could see the outline of his face and the slight shimmer of his gray/gold skin.

His eyes were closed, his body motionless in its awkward pose.

"Rumplestiltskin…" She touched his shoulder, let her hand slide slowly across him in a soothing caress before she gripped his leather vest and pulled his limp weight towards her and shifted him onto his back.

His face was a mask of peace, except for the crinkle between his brows and the unruly strands of hair falling onto his face. Her heart clenched. She wanted to gently brush the stray hairs aside, but she looked down instead, and her eyes stopped at his chest. It took almost an entire minute in which every second ticked by slowly in her mind before she realized that the black hilt of a knife stuck out of his chest.

Unable to breathe, Belle parted the lapels of his leather vest and saw his silk shirt soaked through with blood.

She couldn't breathe. All the blood had drained from her face. She felt like she might faint, but she gripped his vest hard and shook him, instead, barely able to croak his name. "Rum…" She shook him harder, but his eyes were still closed, his body still motionless. "Rum…Rum…"

She shook him hard and slapped his face, "Rumplestiltskin!"

He jerked up with a gasp and tried to turn and extend his leg over the table. Belle tried to keep him on the surface with gentle pressure against his shoulders with her hands, but he lurched off the table and she just barely caught him as he fell.

He sunk down towards the ground, and Belle did her best to make sure the trip was slow and gentle while clumsily knocking silver and dishware out of the way so she could lay him flat on his back. She held him by the shoulders until he couldn't sit upright then cradled his head between her hands even after she laid him down.

His eyes rolled up into his head, and he shuddered.

"Rumplestiltskin…" She stayed crouched down next to him and gently touched his face. Her vision blurred as her panic rose. His skin looked much more gray than gold. "Rumplestiltskin, please…"

He opened his dark eyes, squinted, and focused on her as much as he could. His vision was bleary, but he could see her. Her blue eyes shimmered as much as when he had sent her away. A teardrop fell onto his face. Her parted lips were trembling. He didn't want to make her cry anymore.

"Belle…" He reached up hesitantly and gently brushed his clawed fingertips against her cheek. His voice was slurred and strained. His touch left a smear of blood on her skin. He looked bewildered. "You came back…"

His hand dropped limply back down. Belle's expression became one of hardened determination. She tore the bottom of her dress into strips and pressed the cloth down around the dagger jutting from his chest. She could barely look him in the eye. "Of course I came back…I did say forever, didn't I?"

He wrapped his long slender fingers around her wrist. His hand was cold. Her tears made her vision swim even as she tried to focus on keeping the cloth on the wound, even as her mind raced as she tried to think of what to do. She realized that she had never felt his hands cold before. Rumplestiltskin had always had warm and powerful hands.

He gripped her wrist gently. "It's…better…it's better this way…"

Her eyes blazed at him, and she shook his hand off so she could grip his vest and shake him again "No, it most certainly is not_ better_ this way!" Her shrill yell echoed off the stone walls, but all her anger faded to a churning nauseous worry in her gut when she watched his eyes roll up and close again.

Belle took a deep, jagged breath. She wiped away her tears with the back of her wrist. She grabbed the hilt of the dagger with resolve, intending to yank it out.

She yelped and tore her hand away from the dagger without removing it from him. It felt as if dozens of tiny needles had repeatedly stabbed her palm. She opened it, and instead of seeing a wound or a burn, she saw a growing patch of shimmering gold/gray skin. Belle stared at it with wide eyes until she heard a groan from Rumplestiltskin. She looked down at him and saw a patch of normal skin on his face, just like when she had kissed him. Her hand tingled painfully and she trembled all over.

"Rum…Rumplestiltskin, please…" Her voice shook. "Tell me what to do…" She looked down at the patch of odd skin on her hand, to the hilt of the dagger, and then to the face of the man she loved. "Please!" she tried hard to not cry in her panic. "Please, tell me what to do!"


End file.
